Wheels turning for Lea Fastow's release

Seven months after the wife of Enron's Andrew Fastow went to prison, the attorney for tax offender Lea Fastow is asking that she be released early.

In a motion filed Tuesday and made public today, Mike DeGeurin asked U.S. District Judge David Hittner to vacate her one-year prison term for not reporting personal income from an Enron side deal on her 2000 tax return.

DeGeurin notes that her sentence, which began July 12, is twice what people normally serve for the misdemeanor tax crime and that she's been in a maximum-security detention center in downtown Houston, while most tax offenders are in more amenable minimum security institutions.

Prosecutors don't object to the motion entirely, though they don't agree in full either. While there's no guarantee the judge will agree to free her, Hittner is expected to seriously consider it.

"She has now spent seven months under fluorescent lights, not allowed outside for fresh air even for recreation, in overcrowded conditions and without the basic programs offered by a normal institution. She has been serving hard time in the literal sense and without complaint," states the motion.

DeGeurin, who was admonished by the court in June 2004 for trying to help get his client into a better facility by talking directly to the Bureau of Prisons, said the court has the ability to release Lea Fastow now.

"We ask that the court in the interest of justice summarily grant this motion, set aside the sentence and resentence Mrs. Fastow to time served," DeGeurin said in the motion.

His motion also contains notes about the position of Enron Task Force Director Andrew Weissmann, who sticks by prior statements that the appropriate sentence for Lea Fastow is only five months in prison and five months home detention. Prosecutors also say, however, that Lea Fastow's continued cooperation with the government does not rise to the level whereby prosecutors could ask for her early release.

The judge, who's off work this week, could decide to free Lea Fastow when he returns next week. Even if that happens, however, she not only will have served more time than prosecutors sought, but also at an unexpectedly harsher place.

Fastow has served her time in the Federal Detention Center at 1200 Texas in downtown Houston. The 11-story downtown facility holds people serving short sentences or awaiting trial. There are both men and women, with about 100 women currently housed there.

The Rice-area mother of young children was a prime candidate for a less restrictive minimum-security camp in Bryan, but Hittner refused to recommend the prison camp.

"She was resolved that it was something she has to do, and she is going to do it as best she can. Again, she asked for no special treatment and expects no special treatment," DeGeurin said when she entered the facility July 12, 2004.

Neither DeGeurin nor Weissmann had any comment on the motion.

A former assistant treasurer at Enron who left the company long before it collapsed, Lea Fastow pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of willfully delivering a joint 2000 income tax form to the Internal Revenue Service that she knew was partially fraudulent. She admitted lying about ill-gotten income from an Enron side deal by disguising the money as gifts.

The charges were not directly related to operations at Enron but rather were seen by many as a way to pressure her husband to cooperate with investigators.

Her husband, former chief financial officer for Enron, pleaded guilty to two conspiracy charges. Andrew Fastow is cooperating with the Enron Task Force and is not expected to begin serving his sentence until the Enron trials are over and his wife is released.

Lea Fastow was originally charged with six felonies in the same tax scheme and planned to plead guilty to one felony.

She originally pleaded not guilty, then guilty, then she withdrew the guilty plea when the judge refused to accept a five-month prison deal prosecutors recommended.

She reinstated her guilty plea, and Hittner sentenced her to the full year in prison.